Quotes & Sayings About Bleak Future

The future is always fairyland to the young. Life is like a beautiful and winding lane, on either side bright flowers, and beautiful butterflies and tempting fruits, which we scarcely pause to admire and to taste, so eager are we to hasten to an opening which we imagine will be more beautiful still. But by degrees, as we advance, the trees grow bleak; the flowers and butterflies fail, the fruits disappear, and we find we have arrived
to reach a desert waste. — George Augustus Henry Sala

Those were her best days, although there was always something feckless about her, something so slack and almost fearful in her too frequent smile, so that when you saw Mignon being happy, you always thought: "It can't last." She had the febrile gaiety of a being without a past, without a present, yet she existed thus, without memory or history, only because her past was too bleak to think of and her future too terrible to contemplate; she was the broken blossom of the present tense. — Angela Carter

The science is crystal clear: we humans are the primary cause of global warming, and we face a bleak future if we fail to act quickly. — Joseph J. Romm

Except now everything is digital even murder. There is a record for everything under the sun from the moon and back whether we like it or not. The image that I have of the future is that it is very bleak. It is darkness visible. The black dog of depression will hang us all in the end. Considering the life we live, the values we teach our children, what we believe in everything is a movement for change and every pause between words is a revolutionary act. The 'struggle' was like a painful mental illness. The liberation in retrospect was either the exit from our slavery ushering us into a novel, brave, bold and brilliant world or a mass hallucination. The political climate in post-apartheid South Africa has gone as far as corrupting liberty. — Abigail George

The future looks a bit bleak to me. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Of course it may be argued that this is a fairly bleak view of life. It means, for instance, that we can stand in a room full of dear friends, knowing that nine-tenths of them, if the pack demands it, will become your enemies-will, as it were, throw stones through your window. It means that if you are a member of a close-knit community, you know you differ from this community's ideas at the risk of being seen as a no-goodnik, a criminal, an evil-doer. This is an absolutely automatic process; nearly everyone in such situations behaves automatically.
But there is always the minority who do not, and it seems to me that our future, the future of everybody depends on this minority. And that we should be thinking of ways to educate our children to strengthen this minority and not, as we mostly do now, to revere the pack. — Doris Lessing

I know the world seems terrifying right now and the future seems bleak. Just remember human beings have always managed to find the greatest strength within themselves during the darkest hours. When faced with the worst horrors the world has to offer, a person either cracks and succumbs to ugliness, or they salvage the inner core of who they are and fight to right wrongs.
Never Let hatred, fear, and ignorance get the best of you. Keep bettering yourself so you can make the world around you better, for nothing can improve without the brightest, bravest, kindest, and most imaginative individuals rising above the chaos. — Cat Winters

I honestly don't know, but if America continues to refuse to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, I see a bleak future not only for American society, but for the world as a whole. This is a global problem that is not going away, and the United States is an obstacle to solving it. — Peter Singer

At some point he has to show that he has a vision of a better way. He can't just say 'The future is bleak, follow me.' Because no one will. — Mark McKinnon

If Democrats start consistently winning Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada, the electoral outlook for Republicans in the future is mighty bleak. — Mark McKinnon

Fear of Tunisia's democracy led Isis to launch an attack on its tourist economy The nation's future will be bleak if the cruise ships don't return to disgorge their passengers — Anonymous

The reason I'm interested in alternative worlds and near-future settings is that it allows us to look at our own limitations in our worldviews. These settings allow me to explore how our world might evolve if we allow individualistic kinds of success to remain our primary value. I'm not trying to be overly bleak, and I don't feel bleak or sad about our world. I want empowered and educated people who understand a lot about the world's challenges to strive to be noble, rather than cynical. I think we still need more champions out there. — Jennifer Phang

The world has never before had as much drama as today. Radio, films, television and video inundate us with drama. But while these forms can engage or even enrage the audience, in none of them can the viewer's response alter the artistic event itselfThat is why theatre is signing its own death warrant when it tries to play too safe. On the other hand, that is also the reason why, although its future often seems bleak, theatre will continue to live and to provoke. — Girish Karnad

What happened when there was no prospect of anything beyond this generation? What happened when... — Anne Corlett

I was coming up on a cross street when a man wearing a filthy suit stepped out from around the corner of the building ahead and directly into my path. Bent with age, he turned bleak red eyes to me and stared. Pressed with his chest to both hands he carried a paperback book as soiled and bereft as his suit. Are you one of the real ones or not? he demanded. And after a moment, when I failed to answer, he walked on, resuming his sotto voce conversation.
A chill passed through me. Somehow, indefinably, I felt, felt with the kind of baffled, tacit understanding that we have in dreams , that I had just glimpsed one possible future self. — James Sallis

What does the future look like if the heads of society ask our young people to risk their lives for questionable causes? I think it looks rather bleak. — Tracy Chapman

The boys just wanted to light the oven, but they ended up burning down the whole business and the family home. The children were saved, but the Ole Kirk Kristiansen's future looked bleak.

Ole Kirk was a religious man; his optimism and sense of humour were well-known far beyond the local boundaries. Where others would have folded their hands in their laps and accepted their fate, he did not give up. With the courage born of desperation, he rebuilt his business on a larger and more expensive scale than it had been previously - and more so than he could afford: Many rooms had to be sublet, and the Kristiansens themselves only used a small part of the building. Apprentices were no longer paid, but received board and lodging instead. Life continued, somehow. — Christian Humberg

It's strange how people give up on you within weeks of promising that they will always be there..
and it's just sad that promises are destined to break
and when you had finally believed in that one promise
someday you give up on yourself too ...
and it's not about love, it was never..
it is, at times, about barren hopes and a bleak tomorrow ... — Sanhita Baruah

I am in charge of many people in my vilayet. Sometimes, a decision I make will impact someone in a negative way. Perhaps one farmer wants more access to water, but giving him that would deny three other families the water they need for their crops. I am denying the first man the opportunity to expand his crops and make more money, but I am saving the other three families from starving. Some years I have had to increase taxes to lay up stores against the winter, which is a burden for my people. But it means we will have enough to sustain us through a bleak period. I have had to take fathers from their families for committing crimes - denying a family of their provider, but keeping the rest of my people safe." He sighed. "It is never easy. I try to build for the best future I can, where the greatest number of people will be affected in the best ways. — Kiersten White

In the street, your mouth's a beak, big like a bird, and your future's bleak. — Kool Moe Dee

Nothing is as bleak as the future, except the past. — Arthur Golden

And here am I ... what did I hope - what did I expect? What rich promise did the future seem to hold out to me, when with scarcely a sigh - only a bleak sense of utter desolation - I took my leave from the brief phantom, risen for a fleeting instant, of my first love?
What has come of it all - of all that I had hoped for? And now when the shades of evening are beginning to close in upon my life, what have I left that is fresher, dearer to me, than the memories of that brief storm that came and went so swiftly one morning in spring? — Ivan Turgenev

When I've experienced the Lord's discipline, Hebrews 12:6 has been a means of restoring joy: "The Lord disciplines the one he loves." When I was once experiencing a severe trial, Psalm 50:15 became a source of comfort: "Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me" (Niv). On another occasion when I thought my future looked bleak, I was enabled to rejoice in the Lord through the assurance of Jeremiah 29:11, "'I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future"' (Niv). — Jerry Bridges

This was what was left of a human individual when you took away his home,his family, his friends, his city, his country,his world: a being without context, whose past had faded, whose future was bleak, an entity stripped of name, of meaning,of the whole of life except a temporarily beating heart. — Salman Rushdie

I fell silent after that. I didn't want to talk about such things anymore, at least today. My chest already hurt and I was trying to keep my mind calm. I didn't want to think of a future so bleak and dark. I had plans for my future and they didn't involve the world ending or society collapsing. — J.M. Northup

If a 25-year old can't read and write and he or she isn't gaining marketable skills, it doesn't matter if a Republican or a Democrat is in the White House. His or her future will be bleak. — J. C. Watts

Tuvalu's future at current levels of global warming is already bleak. Any further temperature increase will spell its total demise. — Enele Sopoaga

When you do well in school as a young person you can foresee a bountiful future for yourself. When you don't do well, the future you see is bleak. It's tough to find an honour student in trouble with the law. We have to feel that we're of value and we get that from people reacting to our prudence. — George Chuvalo

Sometimes our blessings are limited. There is a tangible poverty that surrounds us. We are not offered an obvious tapestry of choices. Still, even when the choices seem bleak between a tiger's teeth or deadly fall -- every moment offers up some third options (the true potentiality within the situation), and it is in our choices (conscious or not) that a future harvest depends. — Julie Tallard Johnson

Because no matter how much money we spend there [in Iraq], as long as the people there see this money as ... as assistance that is unwelcome, as long as they continue to be humiliated in their own country by us ... I mean, the future looked bleak, and the future after that was in fact very bleak. — Yaroslav Trofimov

Death didn't look as bad anymore. The future didn't look as bleak. Because when she pulled back ... when her eyes met mine, I saw hope. — Rachel Van Dyken

The sound was so icy and bleak that he imagined his daughter had seen in her dreams the unavoidable future, all the sorrow and confusion to come, and he felt himself shrink in horror. But the moment passed, and soon Sebastian and Monica sank again, or they rose, for there seemed to be no physical dimensions in the space they swam or tumbled through, only sensation, only pleasure so focused, so pointed it was a reminder of pain. — Ian McEwan

If we do nothing, we still get to a post-carbon future, but it will be bleak. However, if we plan the transition, we can have a world that supports robust communities of healthy, creative people and ecosystems with millions of other species. — Richard Heinberg

There's a version of the future in my head where I stay here forever....Bleak, I know. But, still, there's a lot of comfort that comes with knowing how your life is going to turn out. I've never had a surprise turn out in my favor. — Julie Murphy

Yes, memories do haunt. Memories of a happy past, in the expectation of a bleak future, in a sad present. - Anita — Nilesh Sakpal

I was 21 and looking for work in 1932, one of the worst years of the Great Depression. And I can remember one bleak night in the thirties when my father learned on Christmas Eve that he'd lost his job. To be young in my generation was to feel that your future had been mortgaged out from under you, and that's a tragic mistake we must never allow our leaders to make again. — Ronald Reagan

I think falling in love should come with a warning label: CAUTION - side effects may include breaking up, accompanied by heartache, severe mood swings, withdrawal from people and life itself, wasted hours obsessing over bitter reflections, a need to destroy something (preferably something expensive that shatters), uncontrollable tear ducts, stress, a loss of appetite (Cheetos and Dr. Pepper exempt), a bleak and narrow outlook on the future, and an overall hatred of everyone and everything (especially all the happy couples you see strolling hand-in-hand, placed on your path only to exacerbate your isolation and misery). All above reactions will be intensified with the consumption of one or more alcoholic beverages. — Katie Kacvinsky

I felt cheated by the way grown-ups told me that the future of the world was bleak when I became a teenager in the 1970s. The pollution explosion was unstoppable. Global famine was inevitable. I genuinely want the next generation, my own kids, to know that actually it's possible that the future might be better than the past. — Matt Ridley

If we were logical, the future would be bleak, indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope, and we can work. — Jacques-Yves Cousteau

We are as gods on our little rock in the vast bleak cosmos and it's way past time we started getting good at that instead of just posing on Olympus and photoshopping our zits out. The future is more than an Instagram filter. — Warren Ellis

With headlines like "Marry Now or Never," the specter of marriage loomed. It was a constant fear, a threat, a reminder. But Sylvia wasn't baited by those pretty tales of line and hook: the bride-white cake, the prime rib and steak, marriage- that bleak fable- with Husband cast as warden, the future dead clear and blighted. — Elizabeth Winder

In another Christmas story, Dale Pearson, evil developer, self-absorbed woman hater, and seemingly unredeemable curmudgeon, might be visited in the night by a series of ghosts who, by showing him bleak visions of Christmas future, past, and present, would bring about in him a change to generosity, kindness, and a general warmth toward his fellow man. But this is not that kind of Christmas story, so here, in not too many pages, someone is going to dispatch the miserable son of a bitch with a shovel. That's the spirit of Christmas yet to come in these parts. Ho, ho, ho. — Christopher Moore

We have a system that works fabulously well for products. But the one we have for people stinks. This is the lesson we've got to learn - or the human future on this planet is going to be a very bleak one indeed. — Daniel Quinn

I've spent a life-time attacking religious beliefs and have not wavered from a view of the universe that many would regard as bleak. Namely, that it is a meaningless place devoid of deity.
However I'm unwilling simply to repeat the old arguments of the past when, in fact, God is a moving target and is taking all sorts of new shapes and forms. The arguments used against the long bow are not particularly useful when debating nuclear weapons, and the simple arguments against the old model gods are not sufficient when dealing with the likes of Davies et al.
For example, the notion that God didn't exist, doesn't exist but may come into existence through the spread of consciousness throughout the universe is too clever to be pooh-poohed along Bertrand Russell lines. And if I had the time I could give you half a dozen other scientific theologies that will need snappier footwork from the atheist of the future. — Phillip Adams